The Week India - July 29, 2018

56 THE WEEK • JULY 29, 2018

FIFA WORLD CUP

RUSSIA 2018

striker Diego Costa played two friendly

matches for his native Brazil before

switching allegiance to Spain amid

much furore in Brazil. His teammate,

striker Rodrigo Machado, is also Brazil-

ian. But Machado’s progression to the

Spanish senior team was more expect-

ed after having represented Spain at

youth levels. Portugal also had players

of African and Brazilian roots.

Morocco and Tunisia came to the

World Cup with players who were

born in and living in Europe. Can

this be called reverse immigration?

Seventeen of 23 Moroccan players

were citizens of European countries

(Th e Netherlands, France, Italy and

Spain). Half of the Tunisian team

was born and brought up in Europe.

And though they are all second-gen-

eration immigrants, it is interesting

to note that they make remittances

to Tunisia. Senegal had also fi elded

such non-resident citizens. Australia,

too, had the presence of immigrants

such as striker Andrew Nabbout of

Lebanese descent and midfi elder

Massimo Luongo of Italian-Indone-

sian heritage.

Th e Belgium team has 11 descend-

ants of immigrants. Forward Romelu

Lukaku’s write-up about how his

mother mixed water in his milk when

he was six because of poverty had

gone viral online prior to the World

Cup. In that article, he had written

that he was a “Belgian striker” when

the team won and a “Belgian striker

of Congolese descent” when things

were not going well. Apart from

Lukaku, defenders Vincent Kompany

and Dedryck Boyata, midfi elder Youri

Tielemans and striker Michy Batsh-

uayi have at least one parent with

Congolese roots. Midfi elder Mousa

Dembele’s father is Malian, wingers

Adnan Januzaj and Yannick Carrasco

were born to Kosovan and Portu-

guese-Spanish parents, respectively.

Midfi elder Marouane Fellaini and

winger Nacer Chadli have Moroccan

heritage. In fact, Chadli was called

up to the Moroccan team eight years

SWITZERLAND

ENGLAND

SPAIN

GERMANY

60.9%

47.8%

30.4%

17.4%

39.1%

29.6%

BELGIUM

47.8%

11.1%

13.4%*

8.5%

12.8%

14.8%

FRANCE

78.3%

6.8%

18

14

11

9

4

11

7

Migrants in World

Cup squads

Migrants as

% of population

PORTUGAL

Powering progress

Many European squads at

Russia 2018 had players with

an immigrant background

“We’re proud

to have made the

French happy. That was

our role, for them to for-

get about all their prob-

lems. This is the kind of

thing we play for.”

Kylian Mbappe,

France

“I was born

here. I grew up in

Antwerp, Liege and

Brussels. I’ll start a sen-

tence in French and fi nish

it in Dutch. I’m Belgian.

We’re all Belgian.”

Romelu Lukaku,

Belgium

*Migrants as

percentage of

population for

the UK.

Source: 2017

International

Migration

Report, United

Nations

GRAPHICS: DENI LAL/ RESEARCH: KARTHIK RAVINDRANATH